Page 83 of A Shot at Love
“So.” Rick shoved a forkful of toast into his mouth. “What’s going on with you and Gemma?”
Chapter Fourteen
“Dope.” Gemma crossed her arms and pouted. She wasn’t sure whether she was angry at Rick for saying what he had, or herself for reacting so viscerally to it. Her shocked response had all but verified what Rick suspected she and Ky had done. It wasn’t that she was shy or ashamed of it. It was more she wanted to keep it private, between them, just for them.
She’d likened Rick to an annoying older brother and he certainly acted like one. She could imagine him right now, downstairs, giving Ky the evil, stink, interrogation eye and embarrassing him.
Ky was a big boy, though. He could take care of himself, so she wasn’t worried.
The best sex of your life.
Yeah, that about summed it up in a nutshell.
Gemma opened the laptop and then connected a cable from it to her camera. After uploading all the new pictures she’d snapped in the past few days, she climbed up on the bed and got to work, knowing it was the one thing that would take her mind off the sexy FBI agent downstairs.
Scrolling through the hundreds of pictures she’d taken in the woods, and surreptitiously of Ky while he’d been hitting the punching bag, her attention was drawn to one particular photo of him she’d taken in slow motion. It was close-up shot of his torso and face as he hit the bag. She’d adjusted the camera settings perfectly to capture the beads of sweat that burst from his brow and face as he moved. She zoomed in on his hand, manipulated the filter and turned off the color to have the photo switch to black and white. The simple contrast of Ky’s fingers wrapped in stark white gauze against the black background and bag was striking. Gemma sat back against the headboard and smiled. This was the kind of artsy picture she usually avoided taking, knowing her talent for capturing faces was where her true talent lay.
But this simple picture of a hand against a punching bag was beautiful, if she did say so herself.
The fingers, long and clenched, gave the observer a sense of their subtle power as they hit the bag, leaving a sizable dent in the process. The bag swayed from the hit, obvious in the blurriness surrounding it.
A sense of supreme satisfaction shot through Gemma. This, this, was why she’d become a photographer and worked so hard at her craft. To be able to preserve the perfect image, to know she’d captured something few ever saw or could even imagine, meant more to her than any awards, high priced commissions, or professional accolades ever could.
The fact that it was Ky’s hand she’d immortalized increased that sense of accomplishment.
When her stomach started to rumble, Gemma glanced over at the digital bed clock and blinked.
She’d been working for five solid hours without a break. The glass of diet soda had long since been drained. After hitting the save icon on the photos and creating a special file on the laptop for them, she shut down the device, stretched, and thought about lunch.
And about the men downstairs.
The sound of voices drifted up the staircase when she opened her bedroom door. They sounded…civilized.
Gemma let out a breath and bounded down to them.
They were seated where she’d left them hours before, at the kitchen table, each with a laptop in front of them. Opened bags of chips and a few empty water bottles littered the table between them.
Ky was facing in her direction and when he lifted his gaze from the computer screen to her, her insides did a quick tumble and roll at the heat and intensity staring at her.
She felt naked, exposed, and so completely turned on that her knees actually knocked together, making her stumble off the last step.
Stupid knees.
“You okay?” Ky was instantly on his feet.
“Just stiff from sitting so long.”
Lord, when had she turned into such a world-class liar? To cover her mortification, she plastered a smile on her face and asked, “Who, besides me, is hungry?”
*
He wanted to tell her he was starved for her, but kept his thoughts to himself. If Bannerman hadn’t been sitting across from him, poking fun at Gemma’s clumsiness, Ky would have crossed the room, taken her in his arms and feasted on her mouth.
“Kandy sent some of the soup she’s featuring in the new restaurant, along with stuff to make her grilled cheese sandwiches to go with it,” Rick told her when she opened the refrigerator. “There’s a container of it on the second shelf.”
